Your Life As A Tokyo Jujutsu High Background Student

Chapter 41 - The Aftermath

With Gojo back in action, the fight that had been a desperate struggle mere moments ago now seemed like child's play. Your friends and allies scrambled to safety, giving the newly freed Gojo a wide berth. Smart move, indeed. When Gojo went supernova, collateral damage was a real possibility, and nobody wanted to be a crispy critter in his wake.

No time for monologues, no dramatic speeches. The white-haired monk wannabe who'd been dishing out misery got a taste of instant karma. One minute he was smirking, the next? Splat. Like a bug on a windshield. Gojo hadn't even broken a sweat. It was almost anticlimactic after all the trouble he'd caused.

Fake Geto, on the other hand, put up a slightly more respectable fight. Emphasis on "slightly." He pulled out all the stops, fancy cursed techniques flying left and right. Might have been intimidating, if any of it actually worked.

Then came the part that made your insides twist. Gojo, with a face carved from stone, cracked Fake Geto's head open, plucked out his brain, and... ground it to mush beneath his heel.

Later, you'd learn the grim necessity behind that act. Not bloodlust, not Gojo losing his marbles. Turns out, Fake Geto was some kind of parasitic brain-thing wearing a human suit. Squishing the fucker flat was the only way to guarantee he wouldn't hop into some poor sap's skull and start the whole mess again. Useful knowledge, but it did absolutely jack shit to erase the image seared into your mind.

Victory came at a cost.

As the dust settled, Gojo stood there, blood-splattered, over the body of someone wearing his best friend's face. The same best friend he'd had to kill once before. The pain radiating off him was almost tangible. You'd always known Gojo was strong – hell, he was the strongest – but this? This was a whole other level. The mental fortitude it took to do what he'd just done, to make that kind of sacrifice not once but twice... It was beyond anything you could fathom.

In that moment, watching him bear the weight of it all, you realized that Gojo's true strength had nothing to do with his cursed energy or flashy technique. It was this – his ability to do what had to be done, even if it broke him from the inside out. To keep going when anyone else would have shattered into a million pieces.

A lump formed in your throat, scratchy and unwelcome. For a heartbeat, Gojo Satoru, the invincible, untouchable god of the jujutsu world, looked painfully human. And utterly, completely alone.

In the chaotic aftermath, you made your way through the throng of injured and exhausted sorcerers and assistance staff, all transported back to Tokyo Jujutsu High for treatment. Your feet carried you on autopilot toward the infirmary, driven by one purpose: Find Shoko.

You needed her to see this. To see you. Alive and miraculously in one piece after the night's insanity. Sealing Sukuna and unsealing Gojo – all in the short span of a few hours. And here you were, standing upright, breathing, with just one scratch to show for it.

Seriously, one goddamn scratch.

So you let Shoko fuss. Let her poke and prod, your brain still buffering. The entire thing felt like a fever dream gone wrong, and you half-expected to wake up at any moment. Maybe Sukuna had actually killed you back there, and everything since was just your brain's last bizarre hallucination before shutting down for good.

Reality felt paper-thin, one good sneeze away from shattering. But screw it. You were too exhausted to give a damn about what was real anymore. All that mattered was this: It was over. For now, anyway. You had everyone back, battered and bruised but breathing. Gojo was free, Sukuna was caged, and by some cosmic glitch in the matrix, you were still standing.

The world could wait to fall apart. It had a lot of experience with that, anyway. Right now, "enough" had to be enough.

Because, let's be real, you didn't have the luxury of a full-blown mental breakdown when half your friends looked like they'd been through a meat grinder. Talk about putting things in perspective.